MANY MANY thoughts about Trespasser
Nonspoilery general reactions:
My issues with the main campaign (which I loved anyway, don’t get me wrong) were too many repetitive fetch quests, a too-low ratio of companion/story content to combat (exacerbated by the issues with triggering banter), and a boring villain who was not exciting enough as a monster and not three-dimensional enough as a character.
Trespasser solves ALL those issues in spades. I finished it in I think five or six hours, and I enjoyed it probably as much as the whole rest of the 70-hour campaign. I was delighted by the amount of companion content, the lack of junk loot to sift through, how all the codexes were meaningful, and the fast pace of the unfolding story. I would gladly pay twice as much for content like this in future.
Both Solas and the Qunari were just really great opponents. They all felt like actual people making bad decisions I could wholeheartedly oppose that nevertheless had believable motivations. The Qunari facing off against Solas made perfect sense, although I felt the story got a bit muddled on the page because as far as the Qunari seemed to know, Fen’Harel created the Veil and they admired his work, so it’s unclear to me why they decided that the person attacking them was working for Fen’Harel. The Qunari trying to assassinate all of the leadership of Southern Thedas made less sense to me, but okay. Overall, my primary motivation as a player was definitely to GET TO SOLAS but I liked having the Qunari as different enemies to battle along the way.
It did hurt this story to have been spoiled by the post-credits scene of the main campaign. I regret not having had the chance to figure out that Solas was Fen’Harel on my own alongside my Inquisitor. Frankly, even if he just hadn’t explicitly been named in that scene with Flemythal, that scene would have given us 95% of what it gave us, and left enough room to speculate and either be surprised or satisfied when we finally got it here.
On a meta level, I respect that DAI has a theme and sticks to it: that mythology is history playing a long game of telephone and scattering bits and pieces along the way and there is nothing new under the sun. I enjoyed getting all those fragments of history about the elven gods and Fen’Harel. But at the same time, taking a step back, I’m not sure that this particular theme was a great choice for a fantasy game. Turning mythological backstory and figures into concrete events and people ultimately means destroying some of the sense of wonder and depth to the universe. Now the elven gods are just magisters with more power, instead of strange and remote beings, and that doesn’t even really feel right based on the fact that the Fade and the solid world used to be together. The time of Elvhenar should have been unimaginably different. To me, this feels too much like those stories (DARK IS RISING, I’m looking at you!) where everyone has to forget about magic at the end.
Which brings me to my quibbles with the Inquisitor’s end. First, the scene with Solas. I played with a Solasmancer, and this was just a killer scene, incredibly powerful and emotional and compelling, except for the moment that Solas says, “but don’t worry about my plans to DESTROY THE EARTH, what YOU need to worry about is your Inquisition!” I don’t know if there was any way to land that segue, tbh, and I don’t think they should have tried. They should have had Solas just go away, and then you work out the Inquisition stuff with your advisors in a back room when you get back with all your intel.
I also didn’t like that Trespasser stripped power from the Inquisitor in every way. The ending forced them to be explicitly defeatist about their personal capabilities (“my adventuring days are done” just because you’ve lost your arm? How about no) and to surrender loads of their political power whether you kept the Inquisition serving the Divine or disbanded it entirely. Neither choice made a lot of sense to me when you have just come from a conversation where you know Solas is literally working to destroy the world.
I can understand other people being suspicious of you because Solas used to be on your team and not wanting you to be in charge of stopping him, or doubting you because you’ve lost the Anchor, or you wanting to do a cover story to hide your real efforts, but they didn’t get any of those on the screen IMO. But no matter if they had, I just found it all not pleasurable. I don’t know what I wanted instead, and the post-credits scene made me happier, but eh.
A few more random thoughts:
Bull’s betrayal if he’s still Qunari, I thought that made perfect sense and in no way undermines the real love in his relationships if he’s Tal Vashoth. To me, part of what those kinds of big choices (like saving the Chargers or not) represent is not just a single action your character takes, but you the player choosing which universe you are in. Is this a universe where Iron Bull goes Tal Vashoth, or is this a universe where he is Qunari? If he’s Qunari, then, you know, he’s Qunari. He effectively killed the Chargers, and he loved them, so of course he’ll kill you or Dorian, even if he loves you. He could do those things because and only because he has submitted himself to the Qun and so it isn’t actually a choice he is making. That’s why there’s no pain. If he’s Tal Vashoth, and it IS a choice for him to make, then NO FUCKING WAY.
Solas. Man, Solas, what’s with the BAD PLANS, seriously. Literally EVERY plan he makes seems to work out badly, and then he just keeps doubling down on them, wtf.
I have some limited sympathy for him, in that if I flipped a switch to save the world and then woke up five thousand years later and found I had made everything terrible and turned everyone into zombies, I too would probably flip out and try to find a way to undo my work and I wouldn’t really worry too much if I was incinerating a lot of zombies along the way. Up until the point at which I discovered the zombies actually were perfectly functioning people who still loved and cared about others and were living their happy or sad zombie lives pretty much just like before I made everything terrible, so that is where my sympathy stops. Especially since the story went to some lengths to suggest quite strongly that the ancient elves were NOT particularly different from the people of Thedas today (the squabbling architects, the gods who were just generals and threw tantrums and didn’t care what harm they did, slaves, etc).
I do however like the difficulty and complexity of the choices this leaves for a Lavellan who really loves him. I’ve seen people wondering about the choice to try to go with him: IMO there’s two completely plausible motives there, one is simply wanting to know wtf he’s actually trying to do and wanting to be on hand to stop him, but I can also easily believe in a Lavellan who lost her clan, who has essentially been forced to serve the same shemlen religious organization that literally carried out crusades against her people, as well as two empires that mistreat her people to this day, who accepted and kept the role of Inquisitor largely because it gave her the power to offer sanctuary and work to her own kind, and now sees those empires working busily to strip that power away from her now that her usefulness to them has ended (and I am absolutely sure anti-elf hatred would be fueling those efforts for an elven Inquisitor), and who has just spent the last several days wandering the wreckage of the empire of her ancient people, seeing how much was lost. That Lavellan would be a lot more bitter and angry than my own Lavellan, but they’re a completely plausible character to me (male or female). I could also see a mage character who was played Dagna-like (although that would be a stretch given your conversation choices throughout the game) going for it, because OMG MAGIC.
My own Lavellan kept her vallaslin because she cared less about what it meant in the past than what it meant to her people now, and she is pretty heartbroken because she feels like Solas is really just one of the very Evanuris he condemns, and they ALL seem to her to be like giant children, ready to kick over the table because they don’t like how the board has worked out. She’s hoping she can get through to him, not least because she wants him and his power and knowledge to help her people-her ACTUAL people, alive right now, and not some hypothetical people that might or might not come back after he blew open the Veil-but she is having to prepare herself emotionally to kill him if necessary. Which, GRIM! But awesome storytelling, and if only it felt to me like the game ending hadn’t stripped her of all the power she needs to actually carry that out, I’d be completely happy.
Finally, a tiny bit of speculation! Obviously they want DA4 to have a new protagonist; I’m guessing the Inquisitor is going to recruit the hero of DA4 to go after Solas. But I really hope that they find some way to bring your Inquisitor back for a final emotional confrontation with him, before your DA4 hero has to fight the loosed Evanuris (WHEN HIS “PLANS” FOR DEALING WITH THEM END UP LIKE ALL HIS OTHER PLANS THANKS SOLAS GREAT JOB).
Okay I am done rambling out my thoughts! Talk to me about Trespasser! Tell me how those crazy kids Solas and Lavellan are going to work it out! I have been spoiled for all the other variations so all spoilers welcome in comments. :D
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My issues with the main campaign (which I loved anyway, don’t get me wrong) were too many repetitive fetch quests, a too-low ratio of companion/story content to combat (exacerbated by the issues with triggering banter), and a boring villain who was not exciting enough as a monster and not three-dimensional enough as a character.
Trespasser solves ALL those issues in spades. I finished it in I think five or six hours, and I enjoyed it probably as much as the whole rest of the 70-hour campaign. I was delighted by the amount of companion content, the lack of junk loot to sift through, how all the codexes were meaningful, and the fast pace of the unfolding story. I would gladly pay twice as much for content like this in future.
Both Solas and the Qunari were just really great opponents. They all felt like actual people making bad decisions I could wholeheartedly oppose that nevertheless had believable motivations. The Qunari facing off against Solas made perfect sense, although I felt the story got a bit muddled on the page because as far as the Qunari seemed to know, Fen’Harel created the Veil and they admired his work, so it’s unclear to me why they decided that the person attacking them was working for Fen’Harel. The Qunari trying to assassinate all of the leadership of Southern Thedas made less sense to me, but okay. Overall, my primary motivation as a player was definitely to GET TO SOLAS but I liked having the Qunari as different enemies to battle along the way.
It did hurt this story to have been spoiled by the post-credits scene of the main campaign. I regret not having had the chance to figure out that Solas was Fen’Harel on my own alongside my Inquisitor. Frankly, even if he just hadn’t explicitly been named in that scene with Flemythal, that scene would have given us 95% of what it gave us, and left enough room to speculate and either be surprised or satisfied when we finally got it here.
On a meta level, I respect that DAI has a theme and sticks to it: that mythology is history playing a long game of telephone and scattering bits and pieces along the way and there is nothing new under the sun. I enjoyed getting all those fragments of history about the elven gods and Fen’Harel. But at the same time, taking a step back, I’m not sure that this particular theme was a great choice for a fantasy game. Turning mythological backstory and figures into concrete events and people ultimately means destroying some of the sense of wonder and depth to the universe. Now the elven gods are just magisters with more power, instead of strange and remote beings, and that doesn’t even really feel right based on the fact that the Fade and the solid world used to be together. The time of Elvhenar should have been unimaginably different. To me, this feels too much like those stories (DARK IS RISING, I’m looking at you!) where everyone has to forget about magic at the end.
Which brings me to my quibbles with the Inquisitor’s end. First, the scene with Solas. I played with a Solasmancer, and this was just a killer scene, incredibly powerful and emotional and compelling, except for the moment that Solas says, “but don’t worry about my plans to DESTROY THE EARTH, what YOU need to worry about is your Inquisition!” I don’t know if there was any way to land that segue, tbh, and I don’t think they should have tried. They should have had Solas just go away, and then you work out the Inquisition stuff with your advisors in a back room when you get back with all your intel.
I also didn’t like that Trespasser stripped power from the Inquisitor in every way. The ending forced them to be explicitly defeatist about their personal capabilities (“my adventuring days are done” just because you’ve lost your arm? How about no) and to surrender loads of their political power whether you kept the Inquisition serving the Divine or disbanded it entirely. Neither choice made a lot of sense to me when you have just come from a conversation where you know Solas is literally working to destroy the world.
I can understand other people being suspicious of you because Solas used to be on your team and not wanting you to be in charge of stopping him, or doubting you because you’ve lost the Anchor, or you wanting to do a cover story to hide your real efforts, but they didn’t get any of those on the screen IMO. But no matter if they had, I just found it all not pleasurable. I don’t know what I wanted instead, and the post-credits scene made me happier, but eh.
A few more random thoughts:
Bull’s betrayal if he’s still Qunari, I thought that made perfect sense and in no way undermines the real love in his relationships if he’s Tal Vashoth. To me, part of what those kinds of big choices (like saving the Chargers or not) represent is not just a single action your character takes, but you the player choosing which universe you are in. Is this a universe where Iron Bull goes Tal Vashoth, or is this a universe where he is Qunari? If he’s Qunari, then, you know, he’s Qunari. He effectively killed the Chargers, and he loved them, so of course he’ll kill you or Dorian, even if he loves you. He could do those things because and only because he has submitted himself to the Qun and so it isn’t actually a choice he is making. That’s why there’s no pain. If he’s Tal Vashoth, and it IS a choice for him to make, then NO FUCKING WAY.
Solas. Man, Solas, what’s with the BAD PLANS, seriously. Literally EVERY plan he makes seems to work out badly, and then he just keeps doubling down on them, wtf.
I have some limited sympathy for him, in that if I flipped a switch to save the world and then woke up five thousand years later and found I had made everything terrible and turned everyone into zombies, I too would probably flip out and try to find a way to undo my work and I wouldn’t really worry too much if I was incinerating a lot of zombies along the way. Up until the point at which I discovered the zombies actually were perfectly functioning people who still loved and cared about others and were living their happy or sad zombie lives pretty much just like before I made everything terrible, so that is where my sympathy stops. Especially since the story went to some lengths to suggest quite strongly that the ancient elves were NOT particularly different from the people of Thedas today (the squabbling architects, the gods who were just generals and threw tantrums and didn’t care what harm they did, slaves, etc).
I do however like the difficulty and complexity of the choices this leaves for a Lavellan who really loves him. I’ve seen people wondering about the choice to try to go with him: IMO there’s two completely plausible motives there, one is simply wanting to know wtf he’s actually trying to do and wanting to be on hand to stop him, but I can also easily believe in a Lavellan who lost her clan, who has essentially been forced to serve the same shemlen religious organization that literally carried out crusades against her people, as well as two empires that mistreat her people to this day, who accepted and kept the role of Inquisitor largely because it gave her the power to offer sanctuary and work to her own kind, and now sees those empires working busily to strip that power away from her now that her usefulness to them has ended (and I am absolutely sure anti-elf hatred would be fueling those efforts for an elven Inquisitor), and who has just spent the last several days wandering the wreckage of the empire of her ancient people, seeing how much was lost. That Lavellan would be a lot more bitter and angry than my own Lavellan, but they’re a completely plausible character to me (male or female). I could also see a mage character who was played Dagna-like (although that would be a stretch given your conversation choices throughout the game) going for it, because OMG MAGIC.
My own Lavellan kept her vallaslin because she cared less about what it meant in the past than what it meant to her people now, and she is pretty heartbroken because she feels like Solas is really just one of the very Evanuris he condemns, and they ALL seem to her to be like giant children, ready to kick over the table because they don’t like how the board has worked out. She’s hoping she can get through to him, not least because she wants him and his power and knowledge to help her people-her ACTUAL people, alive right now, and not some hypothetical people that might or might not come back after he blew open the Veil-but she is having to prepare herself emotionally to kill him if necessary. Which, GRIM! But awesome storytelling, and if only it felt to me like the game ending hadn’t stripped her of all the power she needs to actually carry that out, I’d be completely happy.
Finally, a tiny bit of speculation! Obviously they want DA4 to have a new protagonist; I’m guessing the Inquisitor is going to recruit the hero of DA4 to go after Solas. But I really hope that they find some way to bring your Inquisitor back for a final emotional confrontation with him, before your DA4 hero has to fight the loosed Evanuris (WHEN HIS “PLANS” FOR DEALING WITH THEM END UP LIKE ALL HIS OTHER PLANS THANKS SOLAS GREAT JOB).
Okay I am done rambling out my thoughts! Talk to me about Trespasser! Tell me how those crazy kids Solas and Lavellan are going to work it out! I have been spoiled for all the other variations so all spoilers welcome in comments. :D
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